One asks him, in Latin, how he finds the wine. It was bad, he replies—“ Bonus.” They immediately laugh, and conclude from it, as they had already foreseen, that the candidate was simply a fool.

At the dessert they serve up wine of a better quality, and to give themselves anew the pleasure of laughing, they repeat the question. Baillet replies-" Bonum."

"Oh! oh! you have become again a good Latin scholar!" "Yes; to good wine good Latin."

CXXII.

AN INGENIOUS MISER.

A miser, a rich proprietor, had found the means of breakfasting every day upon fruit, while spending only a sou (halfpenny) upon bread. He proceeded as follows:—

He went out in the morning with a roll in his hand, and repaired to the market-to-day at Batignolles, to-morrow to Montmartre, another day elsewhere; then he stopped before the stall of a fruit-woman: "You have some very fine cherries! How much do you sell them ?"

"Six sous (threepence) per pound.”

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May I taste them?" "Certainly."

Our miser took a few cherries, ate them

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with a mouthful of his bread, and said: "Heu! heu a little sour!"

He went thus from stall to stall, recommencing everywhere the same way; at the end of the market he had breakfasted well.

When the fruit season was over, he asked to taste the butter, but he never found it fresh enough.

He died at the age of 75, never having spent more than a halfpenny for his breakfast.

CXXIII.

PATERNAL DEVOTION.

On the 7th thermidor, year II. (25th July 1794), the usher of the Revolutionary Tribunal presented himself at the prison of Saint Lazare with the list of those who were to be tried, and called: "Loizerolles, son!"

The young man was asleep. The father replied: "Present!" and allowed himself to be lead to the Conciergerie. Some hours later he appeared before his judges. The clerk of the court, only seeing an error in the difference of age, substituted the Christian name of John for that of Francis, and changed at the same time the date of birth, at the reiterated

requests of Loizerolles, father, who was immediately condemned.

He trembled lest his son, who was ignorant of this devotion, might come to claim his place; and at the moment when they were binding him to the plank of the guillotine he exclaimed: "I have succeeded!"

Loizerolles, son, was set at liberty after the 9th thermidor.

CXXIV.

SOUWAROW.

Souwarow astonished those who did not know him by the multiplicity, the rapidity, and conciseness of the questions that he addressed to them, as if he had had the right to make them undergo a kind of interrogatory.

It was his mode of knowing a man in a moment: he did not esteem at all those whom he embarrassed, and conceived a prompt esteem for him who replied to him clearly and without hesitation.

The first day he met Monsieur Alexandre de Lameth: their conversation seems to be sufficiently original to be related :

"From what country are you?" said the general bluntly to him. "France." "What profession?" "Soldier." "What rank?"

"Colonel." “Your name? "Alexandre de Lameth." "That will do."

M. de Lameth, a little piqued at this brief questioning, looks at him fixedly and says to him :

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:

"To what country do you belong?' Russia, apparently." "What profession?" "Soldier." "What rank?" "General." "What name?" "Souwarow." "That will do." Then both of them began to laugh, and from that time were very good friends.

CXXV.

ROBBERS TAKEN IN.

Francis the First, having lost his way while hunting in the forest of Rambouillet, entered an isolated house in order to rest. He found in it four men, who pretended to be asleep, and who soon got up.

One of them said to the King:

"Thou hast a fine hat; I take possession of it."

Another:

"That's a fine greatcoat; it will fit me to a T." The third:

"What a magnificent coat of mail! how well I shall look with it!"

The fourth:

"As for me, I shall content myself with the hunting-horn."

He was laying hold of it, when Francis the First exclaimed:

"Allow me to show you what virtue this horn has."

He blows it, and immediately the officers who were seeking him run up.

"Here," said he to them, "are some fellows who have been dreaming that all that I had was theirs. I have dreamed, in my turn, that they must be sent to the Provost of MontfortL'Amaury, in order to prevent them from dreaming."

In the evening of the same day, they were, all four, sleeping a sleep free from dreams,with a rope round their neck.

CXXVI.

THOUGHTLESSNESS.

The Duke of Laval was a very handsome man, very polite, but very absent-minded, which led him into disagreeable troubles; which, however, did not disconcert him.

Thus, being ambassador at Naples, he went one evening with the ambassador of Austria to the balcon of the theatre San-Carlo, in order to